This article is dedicated to those of you who took the time to ask questions.  I thought most of you could use the following information.
A reader asks: My mortgage come up for renewal in a couple of months.  I have been locked  in a five year term at 9.25%.  What term should I choose this time?  I am leaning towards short term (6 mos or 1 year) since I got burned last time, locking in for 5 years.
Answer: Five years ago, nobody could have predicted that the rates would have gone down the way they did.  The fact they did could be a blessing in disguise.  First of all, you will find that the rate differential between a 6 month term and a five year term is less that 1/2% (5.95 vs 6.2%).  The answer therefore is not so much rate related but rather what you intend on doing with your residence over the next five years.  If you intend to live there, then I would lean towards the sure bet, the 5 year term!  It is unlikely that the economy can afford to allow the rates to come down even further, however, it is most likely that the rates will escalate over the next five years.
Whatever you decide to do, I feel it pertinent to add an extra piece of advice...maintain your present mortgage payment at renewal.  In other words, don't allow the rate decrease to affect your payment.  Let's look at an example.  Let us assume that your initial mortgage was $100,000 at the 9.25% rate amortized over 25 years.  For the last five years you have been paying $845/month.  You now owe $93,340.  Your present mortgage company will send you the renewal with payments calculate on  the remaining 20 years at a new low rate (hopefully 6.20%) with payments of $675.  Most Consumers will choose the option of saving $170 per month (that's the old payment versus the new payment).  If you had chosen to keep your old payment ($845) at this reduced rate, you would have shortened the amortization to 13 years instead of 20 years.  That would have saved you some $50,000 in interest over the remaining life of your mortgage.  Every time you receive your mortgage renewal, you should re-analyse your cashflow with the single purpose in mind of paying as high a payment as possible, in order to decrease the amortization to as low as budgets will permit.  In our example, keeping the same payment as before the renewal, reduced the amortization by 7 years.
Another reader writes: My mortgage will allow for increased payments every year, as well as lump sum deposits against the principal.  Which is better?
Answer: The sooner you prepay your mortgage, the better!  Most mortgage companies will allow a prepayment privilege by way of a lump sum deposit against the principal during the year, knowing full well that you probably will not exercise your option because you assume that you must have it all or nothing.  In other words, if your mortgage is $100,000 and your prepayment privilege is 10% pay down each year, one might construe that you must have the $10,000 (that's 10% of $100,000 mortgage) before you are allowed to prepay.  That is simply not the case.  Even if you only had the equivalent of one extra month's payment each year, that alone would reduce your overall amortization to 18 years from 25.  By the same token, most Consumers also have a clause in their mortgage allowing for increased payments during the term.  If the increase payment potential is 10% of the old payment, most people think that they must increase the full 10% or nothing.  As in our situation above, you may increase your payment by any amount up to the full 10% (15% in some cases).  As a matter of interest, an increase each year of only 5% of the old payment will decrease a 25 year mortgage down to 14 years.  That's a savings of almost 50% of the interest payable.  My clients have found it much easier to increase payments each year rather than trying to save for a lump sum deposit against the principal.
A reader asks: I have been an avid reader of your column now for several years.  By the sounds of it, you can save everybody time and money.  Why doesn't everybody use the services of a mortgage broker rather than going to their own Bank?
Answer: I guess it's out of sight , out of mind.  The big institutional lenders in this country have branch offices at nearly every street corner, and their reputation from a Consumer's point of view is good.  Most Mortgage Brokers can indeed save their clients time and money, however, the Broker cannot spend the amount of money necessary to advertise this fact.  Most Mortgage Brokers get their business from word of mouth advertising originating from satisfied clients.